Aha, so the truth comes out - it wasn't a FORCED landing at all!

DF.

the latest.

Bogged plane at Lake Eyre a monument to bad day in the outback - ABC Rural (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

call it a comedy of misfortune, i call it a comedy of errors.

Exactly!

DF.

Leave nothing but footprints ? Is there any onus on the owner to remove the carcass of the aircraft from the lake ?

I doubt it. The hull of the one that crashed there back in 1994 was just left there to rot.

DF.

Sometimes (nearly always), these things are best left to professionals:ugh:

ABC Rural News has done a pretty good interview with the Searey owner and he's thoroughly explained the whole exercise.
The part I find difficult to understand, is why anyone would choose to land for a refuelling, in the middle of an Australian Outback salt lake!
These lakes are treacherous in the extreme, and it's rare to find one that has solid ground under the salt.

Lake Eyre plane crash rescue fails

Third link to the exact same article within the space of 8 posts.

Perhaps because the helicopter that came from Moomba is a dedicated night retrieval machine, NVG equipped with trained crew for said task.

The ABC report stated that the helo for the sling-job came down from Kununurra.
That's an awful long way to come..
Nothing closer available?

Sanitised version for the insurance company? there are a lot of airstrips around there. Coober Pedy, Oodnadatta, William Creek, plus numerous station strips including Old Peake which may be very close.

Old Akro, if you read the article again you will see where it says they were heading for William Creek, but wasn't sure if he had enough fuel to make it. Even so, I would have thought that there would be a nice stretch of open road nearby which would have been preferable. Unless a road train came along that is! ;)

DF.

In the ABC interview we learned that the pilot landed well out from the shore.Unfortunately he must not have been aware that salt lakes although they look smooth and lovely and hard in the middle actually dry from the shore and the last place to become hard is the deep middle area. Too many pilots have learned this lesson the hard way. There are hundreds of dry salt lakes scattered across inland Australia. If you are forced to land on one and don't have first hand information about the hardness of the surface land as near as you can to the shore where the shallow mud dries first.

Goodness, D.F!

If Trev gets in first, there'll be a B Double truck stop across the road from the pub at William Creek! :eek:

DF, you are correct as usual ;)

But on track from Innaminks there is a very, very nice strip at Mungeranie which is about halfway along the 210 nm leg from Innaminka and another station strip on track about halfway between Mungeranie & lake Eyre North. And it looks like there is one at Kulamarina Station about 35nm East of Lake Eyre North. And it looks like there is one adjacent to a well head a few nm North of Lake Eyre North.

I've done many flights in that genera area and the number of strips seemingly in the middle of nowhere always surprises me.

My first (real) job after gaining my CPL was flying a C206 based in Moomba back in the late 1980s. I was mainly flying equipment and personnel out to and back from Drilling rigs scattered all over the Cooper Basin.

If there was no established airstrip within about 15 minutes drive from the rig they simply dozed and graded a strip nearby. As a consequence there are many strips scattered over the Cooper basin. I still have somewhere in my filing cabinet a list and co-ordinates of quite a few of these rig strips.

I remember once arriving in the circuit area of a brand new strip next to a drilling rig and having to hold for about 10 minutes whilst the grader finished the strip off. It was with a certain amount of amusement that whilst orbiting overhead I noticed an old strip in the adjacent claypan just over the nearby sand ridge. :D

There were a few salt lakes nearby, one of which from memory had the somewhat amusing name of 'Lake Koolkooltinnie.':D

I'd been summonsed to the Paupers' Court, Clinton.. :sad:

Finally got it done right... remove wing skins to reduce lift?

sadly roads now closed due rain...

https://scontent-lax1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...d5&oe=55F8091B

https://scontent-lax1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...92&oe=55EED7AD

https://scontent-lax1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...83&oe=55FEFE10

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.n...2d6c9a6fa3a80e

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...79a6771c5c6ebf

Things improved a lot from early on then.

So is the owner of SeaRey XWW planning to rebuild the aircraft?